WHAT the __! It’s Halloween. So this week we’re going to talk about scary things.
Nah, not things that go bump in the night or that show up in your rearview mirror when you’re driving down a dark, desolate road on a rainy night.
We’re going to talk about big scares right where the game is. In the heat of the action. In living daylight or under dozens of LED lights that illuminate indoor or outdoor sports arenas. What could possibly go wrong? What are the things that could strike terror in the hearts of athletes, coaches fans, while a sports season is ongoing? What scenarios make you squirm while you’re thinking about their possibility. Or reality?
Here are four of them :
- When you go 0-14 in the UAAP. It happened twice in recent memory to the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons—first in 2007 when the State U squad was coached by—ironically—Joe Lipa, the coach that gave UP its one and only basketball championship in the postwar era in 1986. The second was in 2010, when then Coach Aboy Castro resigned after two consecutive games, and his successor, Boyet Fernandez, failed to pull off a win all season long. That was a dreadful experience for the Maroons who had kept their heads above water most seasons after their 1986 achievement, even making the Final Four twice in 1996 and 1997. They even found that the specter of a second 0-14 season gets even more haunting once one has experienced a first. The trauma could last for years and could stay longer than expected.
But scarier still was what the Adamson University Soaring Falcons underwent for two consecutive seasons in 1999 and 2000 : a seamless 0-28 losing streak under very young coach Luigi Trillo, who went up against veteran mentors like Franz Pumaren and Aric del Rosario and lost. (He later won a championship for Alaska, though in the Philippine Basketball Association, a more competitive league). Those zero wins were hair-raising experiences indeed!
- When you sweep the eliminations but don’t clinch the title. The University of the East (UE) Red Warriors were a wondrous, well-oiled machine in Season 70 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) in 2007-2008. They showed everybody how, winning games with powerful margins of over 16 points. This was the UE of Elmer Espiritu, James Martinez, Hans Thiele and Paul Lee, among others, and they looked invincible that season.
However, come the finals against La Salle, bummer! The Green Archers of JV Casio, Rico Maierhofer, Tyrone Tang and Simon Atkins swept them 2-0 in that season’s UAAP Finals. Ouch, what a fright!
In a similar scenario, though not exactly a sweep, the Ateneo Blue Eagles were ready to grab the UAAP crown in masterful fashion, 10-2, in Season 69. Just like De La Salle in Season 79, the consensus was that it would be Ateneo’s season. But a come-from-behind University of Santo Tomas (UST) Growling Tigers, who barely made it to the Final Four, barged into the Finals and swiped the crown in the last two games of their Best of Three. That’s like having the rug pulled from under you and landing in a vat of slime. Expect the unexpected, indeedy. Very Halloweeny!
- When your best player suffers a season-ending injury midseason. This happens all the time. And when this kind of misfortune strikes, it’s always very dramatic, very painful, and very hard to look at. This happened to Jeric Teng when the Growling Tigers played the National University Bulldogs in Season 76 (2013). Teng seemed to have been pushed by Jeoffrey Javillonar (at least that’s what Teng thought and told reporters later), suffered a bad landing and seriously injured his right shoulder. He was out for almost all of the season, but returned like a hero in the Finals. This was the classic UAAP Finals between UST and DLSU where the Teng Brothers faced each other in a fitting duel. Jeron Teng then was on his rookie year and Jeric was on his way out via graduation. But this injury in July (just at season’s start) made it look as if Jeric Teng would graduate without ever playing.
Other scary UAAP injuries were those of UP’s Jerson Prado in October 2015 who suffered torn ligaments (ACL and MCL) and a dislocated kneecap all in one package after a rebound attempt against Adamson U in Season 78. This season, Mario Bonleon of UST re-injured his left wrist and is out for the rest of the season. According to reports, Bonleon had been nursing a non-union scaphoid fracture (a break in one of the small bones of the wrist) for several years now but was playing through the pain. In their first game against La Salle this season, however, the unthinkable happened and he is permanently sidelined for Season 79.
- When your team loses by the widest margin on record. There are blowouts and there are blowouts. But to lose by the biggest blowout on record, that is the unkindest cut of all. In the National Basketball Association, the largest margin of victory ever—68 points!—was set on December 17, 1991. The Cleveland Cavaliers downed the Miami Heat, 148-80 and the nightmarish record stands to this day. In NBA Finals history, the widest margin stays at 42 points, established in June 1998 by the Chicago Bulls (96) over the Utah Jazz. More recently, in the UAAP, the steamrolling De La Salle Green Archers ran over the UST Growling Tigers by 43 points, 99-56, to set a new record in the league.
Such bad numbers may serve some good purpose, as they can serve as a wake-up call for those concerned so adjustments can be made. The “distinction”, however, is downright nightmarish as the info and numbers will live on in history books for eternity. This could make for a not very happy Halloween.